Rotary engine.



PATENTE'D MAR. 13, 1906. E; T.Y0UNG & OAYANAU-GH.

ROTARY ENGINE. APPLIUAIIOF FILED JULY 27,19os..

[JESEEE Z'ooZZ. whom it may concern.-

" V {onrr i n srrss n ws an l EDWARD r. YOUNG A NDLEANDER J. cnvamueuor nosrou- 1 MASSACHUSETTS.

Specification of Letters Baltzitl Botany anem a-:1.

Patented. March 13, 190

dppli tion filed July 27,1903. SerialNm 167,0530 I l Be-it known that we, EDWARD T, YOUNG wandLEA'NnERJ. OAVANAUGH, of Boston, in

the 'countyof Sufiolk and State of Massachusetts, have. inventeda new and useful Improvement in Rotary Engines, of which the ollowing is a specification.

In the descript on of our invention we I shall use the-word steam to describe the fluid by which power is applied to our engine but we use this termmerely for convenience, as it will be evident toall skilled. in the art that other 'fluids. under pressurefor example, the products of a hydrocarbon explosion or a 'liquid,-,such as water-will cause the operation of our invention inthe same manner as steam.

The purpose ofour'invention is to utilize the contact of steam or other-fluid with the Walls of a assage in which it is moving as a meansof (lieveloping work andit consists in a movable passage connected with suitable means whereby thejaction of steam under pressure moving in sai'dpassage incontact with its wallswill so actuate said passage as to produce power in a form capable of ractieal use. By the means hereinafter ascribed the entire energy of steam may be utilized y and rear oft-he casing, w connected with the-baseduring its movement in thelmovable passage, and it may be dischargedat atmospheric pressure.

what now seems to us the simplest form.

v Figure 1 is a vertical section of such an engine, 'Fig. Z'being also a vertical sectiontaken atright angles a cross-section, enlarged, of a portion ,of-the tube, showing details. of con- Fig. 4 shows diagrammatically a which incloses the engine. I

' Band B are disks which respectively, being by bolts a. or in such other way as will make a steam-tight joint;-

invention willbeunderstood by refer; ence to the drawmgs, m which we have shown I arotary engine embodying our invention m,

to the sectional plane of Fig;

I is the part, ;A, Whichiorms the periphery ol the casing-fv close in the front A and periphery-A A steam-inlet.- is pro-,

. the

' irided by the'pipe a, which connects With a suitable sourceof su ply. "A steam-chamber C is thus formed within the casing in which the movable part of ourengine moves.

The rear wall 513 of the, casing is provided with a recess 7;,contsiin'ing a web 12 in which is a bearing 5 torec'eive the rear journal (1 of isto'n-shaft D of 'the piston-wheel E. As s own in the drawings, the shaft D is sub stantially hollow to aiiordani exhaustschamber D, bein gwreferably strengthened by a spider'd, an 7 mg to prevent the steam inchamberQfrom escaping through this opening in the disk tube of considerable breadth compared with its height and is of very considerable-length. One end of thistube is connected, as atthe o t e shaft D, and the other ends opens into its front end extends out; through an opening in the disk B tof'orm the I exhaust-outlet for the steam, 5 being a pack- 7 shaft Dis mounted the piston-wheel E v which, I as shown, comprises a closely-wound sp ral 1pening e, with-the exhaust-chamber D. in

the chamber'C, so that the tub'e'as .a whole forms a passage connecting the chamber C within the casing A, AT, B, and B Withthe chamber D in theshaft'l). shown in the drawings, is made by winding a long thin strip e? of sheet metal-brass, for example-and two wires-say one sixty-fourth of an inch in diametere of about the shaft D, towhich' one end-of the strip and oneend of each wire is soldered orotherwise;connect ed at a point just beyoii'd the openihgeinto the chamber D I after the spiral has been formed mthe IllitillKIldGSCIflbQd and the outer end finished oil soldering or otherwise, so that the spiral I will not unwind, the entire sidcs otthc spirallysformcd struc-- -8o 'lhis tube, as

ofthe shaft 1). I Ihc Wires at, .0 are placed one. near each cdge-of-the strip e 1and ser\"c to separate ,e'aclr laycr of the strip y from the one next it, and

ture are closed in either byv disks, suitably: a,

connected thereto by passage} or substantially-ltlie width'of the shcet-metalstrip and of ajheight of thcdiamsoldering or'ot'herwise .or by'asteammght cement, so that a spiral.

into the chamber in the shalt l and that the passage shall be be shaped, as we be heve the best results will be attained by having the passage 111 the term of a true spiral,

the structure being, in. effect, a rotary piston.

The operation. of our invention when constructed as described is as follows: Steam be ing admitted under pressure into the cha1nber C fills the chan'iber and immediately begins to :[ill the tube or passage E, through which it finds an outlet iroin the opening thence to the open air. it is well ln'iown that 1 i there is always friction m. the passage of a fluid through a pipe, and as the steam under pressure passes through this passage (the spiral passage may be, say, one hundred -feet or more in length) it produces a rapid rotary motion, which may be imparted to any machinery to be run by the engine by means of the pulley E. If desired, the walls of the tube may he roughened somewhat by means of acid or in some ot ier way, so as to increase this friction. By the time the steam has reached the shaft (3 it 'ill have exhaustedits owor, and hence there will have been taken rom it all the energy which it possessed,

whether by impact, ex ansion, friction, s eed, or otherwise, and t .us it is believed tiat this will be round a most economical method of using steam, as the only friction shape or dimensions, though itseems to us apt now that this is the most economical and best shape in which to make the tube.

One advantage of our engine is that when made u' on the general plan indicated, to increase tie power all that is necessary is to couple up a number of these rotary pistons upon the same shaft, each piston E and its chamber C being independent of the other and all being of the same size, so that the ower of a given en ine may be easily doubled or trebled by -oubling or treblin the number or" spirals, and hence getting a arge increase of power at the cost of but little additional s ace. Thisis shown diagrammatically in. big. 4. Other means of coupling two or n pistons temporarily or permanently will sug est themselves.

As intimatec we prefer to use this engine with steam]; but it is evident that our engine may be operated by any fluid under pressure. For example, gasolene exploded in "a proper chamber in a manner now too amass a gas, the production of said explosions which when led into the chamber C will furnish a practically constant supply of such products of combustion under ressure as will form a ready and economics substitute for steam generated in an ordinary boiler, and therefore we by no means mean to limit our invention to a device which can be operated by steam alone.

To reverse our engine, all that is necessary is to connect the exhaust-passage throng the sh aft D with the steam-supply, making in this case the ups e the exhaust-pipe, and thus causing t \c tube to reverse its movementi. 0., the piston may be rotated in either direction, as desired, according to which end of the passage is used as an inlet.

The shape and length of the passage may be varied according to the circumstances under which the engine is to be used and the work which it is to do. Nhen two or more engines are coupled together, one or more of the steam-inlets may be closed, if desired, to reduce the power, or the same result may be accomplished by reducing the total steampressure. in fact, within certain limits the speed and )ow'cr of a given engine may be controlled by adjusting the steam-pressure.

We have shown the rotary-piston inclosed in a casing; but it is evident that if the chamher in the sh aft was suitably connected with a steam-supply the piston would be rotated and the outer end of the spiral would become the exhaust without any further provision therefor. It is also evident that instead of extending the partition between two chambers C, as indicated in Fig. 4-, to the central shaft this-partition need not make a steamtight separation between the two chambers, but instead the two chambers m ay be thrown substantially into one, in which case the two rotary istons will rotate in unison upon the same siai't and'bc controlled by the same tean1-pressure Where, however, they are separated by a steam-tight partition, the amount of pressure acting-upon each pisto ma be controlled independently.

ld hat we claim as our invention is 1. An engine comprising a spiral passage, said assage being formed of a spiral sheet of meta havmg a relatively small distance between the convolutions of said sheet as compared with its width, the space between the convolutions of said sheet being closed on each side by a spiral wire, as described.

2. A rotary engine comprising a casing,a shaft ada ted to rotate in'said casing, a pacle ing in sai casing, and a plurality of means to force said shaft against said packing comprising a s ring and a pressure within said casing, as escribed.

3. An engine comprising a tight casing, on

I illGll a hollow shaft formih anofitleb, so In testimon whereof we hereto set our ported. 1n sa-lcl casing and haftms descrlbed.

swing a,- hollow lna mos this 25b day of July, 1903i spider mounted thereon, a piston-,wheell I EDWARD T. YOUNG.

mounted on said spider and having a spiral LEANDER J. CAVANAUGH. J 5 passage therein, the end of said assage next Witnesses:

said spider belng connected Wit the hollow t GEORGE O. G. OOALE,

M. E. .FLAHERTY. 

